The monastery; The abbot.

826 WAVERLEY 1 NOV.'ELS.
covered features which, whatever might be their ordinary complexion, were
now covered with a universal blush.
"Licitum sit," said Magdalen, looking at the other matron.
"Vix licitum," replied the other, with reluctant and hesita'ing acquiescence; and again adjusting the veil of the blushing girl, she dropped it so
as to shade, though not to conceal her countenance, and whispered to her,
in a tone loud enough for the page to hear, "Remember, Catharine, who
thou art, and for what destined."
The matron then retreated with Magdalen Graeme through one of the
casements of the apartment, that opened on a large broad balcony, which,
with its ponderous balustrade, had once run along the whole south front of
the building which faced the brook, and formed a pleasant and commodious
walk in the open air. It was now in some places deprived of the balustrade,
in others broken and narrowed; but, ruinous as it was, could still be used
as a pleasant promenade. Here then walked the two ancient dames, busied
in their private conversation; yet not so much so, but that Roland could
observe the matrons, as their thin forms darkened the casement in passing
or repassing before it, dart a glance into the apartment, to see how matters
were going on there.
Life hath its May, and is mirthful then:
The woods are vocal, and the flowers all odour;
Its very blast has mirth in't,-and the maidens,
The while they don their cloaks to screen their kirtles,
Laugh at the rain that wets them.
OLD PLAY.
CATHERINE was at the happy age of innocence and buoyancy of spirit,
when, after the first moment of embarrassment was over, a situation of
awkwardness, like that in which she was suddenly left to make acquaintance with a handsome youth, not even known to her by name, struck her, in
spite of herself, in a ludicrous point of view. She bent her beautiful eyes
upon the work with which she was busied, and with infinite gravity sate out
the two first turns of the matrons upon the balcony; but then, glancing her
deep blue eye a little towards Roland, and observing the embarrassment under
which he laboured, now shifting on his chair, and now dangling his cap, the
whole man evincing that he was perfectly at a loss how to open the conversation, she could keep her composure no longer, but after a vain struggle
broke out into a sincere, though a very involuntary fit of laughing, so richly
accompanied by the laughter of her merry eyes, which actually glanced
through the tears which the effort filled them with, and by the waving of
her rich tresses, that the goddess of smiles herself never looked more lovely
than Catherine at that moment. A court page would not have left her long
alone in her mirth; but Roland was country-bred, and, besides, having
some jealousy as well as bashfulness, he took it into his head that he was
himself the object of her inextinguishable laughter. His endeavours to
sympathize with Catherine, therefore, could carry him no farther than a
forced giggle, which had more of displeasure than of mirth in it, and which
so much enhanced that of the girl, that it seemed to render it impossible
for her ever to bring her laughter to an end, with whatever anxious pains
she laboured to do so. For every one has felt, that when a paroxysm of
laughter has seized him at a misbecoming time and place, the efforts which